This is a sequel to my story "The Annual Outing". You should read it before reading this story. I have received several comments from readers of that story indicating unhappiness about the wimpy forgiveness of Jim for his adulteress wife, Janis. I suppose that most of those critics would preferred that Jim had divorced Janis and thrown her out of the house based on the assumption that Jim would automatically gain custody of their children. I believe that Jim recognized that if he divorced his cheating wife he could not assume he would automatically assume custody of their children solely based on her adultery. In a court of law the sole criteria for custody in most states is 'what's best for the child'. If Jim had divorced her she would most likely have been given custody of the children as the nurturing parent and he would have ended up with only visitation rights and been saddled with alimony and child support payments. Not a good deal for him. She makes out better than he does even though he's the one who is wronged. So that is why old Jim bit the bullet and allowed her to stay. This sequel looks at some measure of revenge that he planned but it requires he have a lot of patience.
In the weeks that followed our making up our lives returning to normal I gave a lot of thought to what had happened and though I was ready to forgive her for her dalliance with another man on her annual outing, however, the fact that she has deliberately allowed him to impregnate her was causing a painful gnawing in my gut. I thought about having her see a psychiatrist and mentioned this to her to see if he could determine why she would do such a thing. She initially agreed but I could never get her to make an appointment to see one and the subject just seemed to fade away. However, I didn't forget about it and tried to analyze her behavior myself. To my mind what she had done indicated a dangerous behavioral quirk and character flaw that may lay dormant but may return again sometime. The fact that she didn't want to see a psychiatrist about it indicated she knew it was there and didn't want to expose it to the light of day. This meant she knew would do something similar someday. However, the fact that she was caught the first time meant that she would be a lot more devious the second time around.
I was determined to try to do whatever I could to keep another similar episode from happening again or at the very least to try to keep it from happening while the children were young. Jan was a loving mother and really nurtured the children and they needed her. In any custody battle she would most likely prove the superior parent. So I needed a multi pronged attack on the problem.
I first went to talk with a lawyer about it. I'd heard about prenuptial agreements. What about a nuptial agreement or a contract between persons who were already married that would formally establish a financial agreement regarding the assets of our marriage. The attorney said that a contract could be prepared that would supercede any obligation provided by marriage. I told him what I wanted and he said he would prepare a contract that would penalize Jan financially if she strayed again.
Second, I thought about improving electronic monitoring of her but in the current situation at home she wouldn't be liable to upset the applecart too soon. It might be several years before a situation arose to trigger some new infidelity on her part. Besides, it would take hours on a daily basis to listen to recordings of her daily activities from listening devices and wire taps. No, I would wait and watch for anything that was a break in her normal daily routine before beginning a new round of monitoring. I knew the next time she would be a lot more cautious and it would take an extraordinary and expensive system to catch her. I did however start a special fund to have the monies available to expand my system and hire detectives without her being aware if it was needed. She usually let me handle our finances, but in the past I'd kept her privy to what was going on in that area in case something happened to me so I planned to continue the normal routine but without providing knowledge about the special fund.
Third, I insisted that we go to marriage counseling to try to improve our marriage skills. I needed to have a record that I had done everything I could to make this marriage work.
Fourth, I began to expand my role as a nurturer of our children. I may need to prove to a judge someday that I had as much a role in raising the children as Jan did. At the present time she had the advantage in this department as she was a stay-at-home mom. Later, when the children started school, I would encourage her to return to the work force to help minimize her time home alone. She had a BA in Library Science so she wouldn't have too much trouble finding meaningful work on a part time basis, that could be expanded to full time when the children were old enough. Also, I thought a library would also be good in her case as it would limit her from meeting a lot of men.
Finally, I determined that we would have more time for ourselves by going away periodically and randomly on weekends where I would attempt to renew our marriage and our love for one another. I was willing to do everything I could to keep the family together, but also plan for a worse case situation.
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Chapter 2 The Nuptial Agreement
A week after visiting the lawyer regarding the nuptial agreement I got a call from him that he had a draft completed and wanted to go over it with me. I took a few hours personal time from work and went down to his office. The agreement was fairly straight forward and essentially contained the items that I requested him to include. Basically, it required us to agree to be faithful to one another without any infidelities or the adulterer would be divorced and lose all financial interest in the marriage assets. The period of this contractual obligation would expire when our youngest child reach his twenty first birthday. After that date any divorce would be based on a fifty fifty split of assets. Of course, if there was a divorce due to adultery before that date the parent who received custody of the children would receive child support from the other until they turned twenty one. Adultery was described as the voluntary intercourse, whether orally or vaginally, between a man or woman. Kissing was excluded.
I took a copy of the agreement and that evening sat down with Jan and explained why I wanted the agreement. She was a little shocked but when I told her that it would go a long way for me to trust her again she reluctantly agreed to sign it. She really didn't have much of an option as a refusal to sign it would have returned our marriage to the time I imposed the conditions on her. Refusing to sign could also be interpreted to indicate she planned to be unfaithful again. We made a date to meet at our lawyers office the following morning to have our signatures notarized. Next morning after the signing I took Jan to a restaurant and we had coffee. She was quiet and withdrawn as we sat and at a table.
"Are you all right?" I asked.
"I've been thinking how all this could have been avoided if I hadn't gotten on a mindless track. I don't know why I did it. Something seemed to snap and I got involved in the intrigue and lust involved in our meetings."
"Well, hopefully, we'll both have to be very careful in the future not to jeopardize our marriage."
Seeing as I was vulnerable in this agreement, as well as Jan, I recognized that I would have to be very careful not to find myself in a compromising situation for the next eighteen years.
That night we made passionate love together. I felt some relief that we passed this milestone in our new relationship and was now ready to get on with our new marriage.
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Chapter 3 Life Goes On
Time passed, as it always does, and we became a happy family again. Jan and I enjoyed an active sex life with loving passion interspersed with weekends away by ourselves to revel in our new found love away from the responsibilities of parenthood. Our parents provided the necessary baby sitting services. They were more than happy to play the doting grandparents.
We went to marriage counseling for a year and got some garbage cleaned out of our relationship and went on from there. I tried to take a more active role with raising our two children; reading to them at bed time, playing ball and other games with them and being supportive of Jan in her parental role.
Occasionally, I checked the wire tape recorder and her cell phone log to verify that there were no strange communications and also monitored her credit card usage but never found anything incriminating.
After Sean, the youngest, started to school she got a part time job at the local library that made her available when the kids got home from school. This worked fine for several years until the kids started high school and when a full time position became available at the library she took it.
In the meantime I had advanced in my career and between the two of us we were socking away quite a bit of money toward the kid's college education. Besides, the kids did quite well scholastically so we could look at either or both of them getting some scholarship support. I began to talk to Jan that the two of us could possibly take a cruise for our wedding anniversary the following year. She was enthusiastic about it and we began to plan for it.
About this time Jan announced that the library would like to send her off to Chicago to attend a seminar on computer based library systems and she told me, "Jim, I really need to go. My job requires it if I want to be eligible for Sue's job when she retires next year." Sue was the head librarian.
"I don't see why not. When is it?" This was it. Should I trust her. It had been twelve years since her first affair and I hadn't found anything since then not to trust her.
"It's scheduled to start three weeks on a Tuesday and go through Friday."
"Alright, how about I join you on the Friday and we spend the weekend in Chicago."
"Oh, darling. That sounds wonderful. Thanks so much for trusting me and letting me go."
"You've earned my trust over the last twelve years, Jan. I love you more today than I did when we were married."
Her face lit up and she bent down to give me a passionate kiss. "Oh, my darling, I love you so much too."
We had some very passionate love making that night but I wondered deep inside just how much did I trust her? My special fund was now up over $50,000 and I thought I could afford a little assurance so I contacted the investigator in Chicago, that had caught Jan's previous indiscretion, and asked him to put some unobtrusive surveillance on her while she was at the seminar.
Subsequently, the surveillance of her activities at the seminar failed to reveal any new indiscretions and we had an enjoyable weekend together following it
The following year, after Sue retired, Jan was offered the head librarians position. I was very proud of her, but her new job now required that she do some traveling and attend meetings in the city. I was cautious because I thought if she was going to do something she was now in a perfect position to do it. I began to make more frequent checks of the home wire tap and her cell phone logs but didn't find anything.
